Anyone with children is aware of the difficulties inherent in traveling with children who must, or whom their parents prefer, be strolled instead of walking themselves. One or more parents loaded with luggage and simultaneously pushing a child stroller is not an uncommon site in any airport today. Not only does the stroller occupy one or more of the “pusher's” hands, but strollers often do not fit in suitcases, and, regardless, always take up space.
There have been attempts to somehow alleviate some of these difficulties, to some extent, by enabling wheeled strolling of a child together with wheeled transportation of a suitcase. U.S. Pat. No. 5,988,657, U.S. Pat. No. 6,241,313, U.S. Pat. No. 6,932.427, US Pat. App. No. US2004/0066069, and US Pat. App. No. 2004/0021353 all disclose some type of foldable or attachable suitcase seat. However, none offers the ease of use, economy of design, convenience, and/or facility of set-up as that of the instant inventive technology. Further, all appear to require substantially more additional parts and structures than is required by the instant inventive technology and, as such, appear to require more storage space during non-use of the seat (e.g., while stowed in the overhead compartment of a commercial jet) than does the instant inventive technology.
At least one embodiment of the inventive technology seeks to solve one or more of the above-referenced problems by providing a quick, perhaps even “automatic” set-up of the components of the apparatus. Additional storage space (i.e., that storage space not required by a suitcase without a stroller conversion capability) required due to the suitcase stroller's feature is either small, minimal, or non-existent, as in certain embodiments of the inventive technology, either: (a) the seat back material may be stowable in a small storage compartment therefore; and/or (b) any “additional” wheels (i.e., those not found in conventional rollable suitcases) may be storable so as to not increase (or so as to not significantly increase) the space occupied by the apparatus in stored configuration.
Of course, other advantages of particular embodiments of the inventive technology may be revealed in the following description.